Monthly Archives: April 2018

Welcome back to Season Three of Linking Our Libraries! We are Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we are here to share information with all types of libraries, archives, and other nonprofits working to build their skills. This season, we are working on building a toolbox of leadership skills and ideas. By the end of this season, you will have fifteen specific skills that will make you a stronger leader and manager in your organization.

This week we are looking at teamwork ideas.

When a manager (or professor) announces people will be working in teams, the result is always the same: groans, eye rolling, and immediate claims of “I always have to do all the work on a team!” It is frustrating to hear the constant refrain of “Can’t I just work by myself???” complete with dramatic sighs and a multitude of excuses for being a solo operator.

The answer is the same: No. This is a team organization, profession, and life. No one gets things done alone, even as a solo librarian. We always work in teams, we always work with and for other people. Remember our basic purpose in libraries? It is to serve our communities. We are defined by working with other people to accomplish goals, and to be stronger and better together. This is true whether or not you like your team, whether or not you want to be part of the team, and whether or not everyone does the amount of work you think they should do. Even when people do pieces of the work alone, they are part of the overall team. Working collaboratively is the only way an organization will succeed. It really is that simple.

Welcome back to Season Three of Linking Our Libraries! We are Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we are here to share information with all types of libraries, archives, and other nonprofits working to build their skills. This season, we are working on building a toolbox of leadership skills and ideas. By the end of this season, you will have fifteen specific skills that will make you a stronger leader and manager in your organization.

This week we are looking at strategies for networking. Joining us is Guest Host Maria Burnham, from Sauk Rapids- Rice High School.

Building your professional network is always going to be helpful to you – and to them. Networking does not mean going to high-energy parties and shaking lots of hands. Okay, it CAN mean that; but it usually involves just making connections with people. Remember when we talked about advocacy last week? It was all about making connections. Networking is that same thing – but you think about connecting with people across your profession, instead of stakeholders. They are the ones who can help you with questions about your daily work, can point you toward solutions to problems, and who will celebrate with you when things are great. You will do the same for them.

As library people, we truly are stronger and better when we work together. Whether you are at a conference, new in a school, alone in your library, or just looking to build up a network of people who do what you do at work – networking can make you stronger. Your contributions back to the network will make them stronger too.

Want to talk with us about this topic? Do you, your staff, or your organization need training in this topic? Want to write a policy, or develop a program? We are here for you!Click here to get started!

Happy National Library Week!!! This is our chance to celebrate libraries, and all the wonderful things we do for our communities. In honor of this week, we discuss a topic both scary and exciting: Advocacy.

Joining us is returning Guest Host Jami Trenam, from Great River Library System and is the outgoing Chair of the Minnesota Library Association Legislative Committee.

If you are like many library professionals, you probably lean toward introversion rather than being an extroverted party animal; and the idea of needing to be an advocate sounds kind of scary. But advocacy is not just standing on a soapbox, screaming out your ideas. It means making connections with individuals and groups, and sharing ideas with people. It means knowing who is in your community, and reaching out to them to talk about the things you are doing: materials, services, and programs.

Not surprisingly, we are generally a pretty easy sell! People who do not use the library regularly, and even those who do, are often stunned by the range of things we have to offer. You may have seen some of those neat materials and services on our website and social media this week, and hopefully you saw some great ideas on library websites all over the place.

It will be so important for both you and your library to advocate for existence, for success; learning a few basic procedures for advocating will help you to keep things going.

This week we are looking at strategies for communication! It’s a surprisingly tough skill, but we have some strategies.

Joining us is Guest Host Jami Trenam, from the Great River Library System and the Minnesota Library Association Legislative Committee.

Communication is one of those leadership skills that seems like it should be so easy to do. However, everyone discovers that communicating with colleagues, patrons, Boards, funders, and community members is wildly complicated. It is so easy to issue directions, or to send out a policy, or to post news to your social media account. Just saying things is easy, and if that were the extent of true communication, it would be easy too.

Instead, you need to think of communication as a larger process, each step filled with the possibility of failure.